Despite the familiar buzz of the barflies at Sweeney’s, New York was invariably alien when you came back as a visitor. Pat couldn’t quite put his finger on it, but the city didn’t allow for something; it was flowing too fast, and when you got out of the slipstream of it, you were gone.

Pat took another gulp of poteen and tapped the bar with his ring finger, shave and a haircut. Where to go with Billy boy? His cousin had wanted Pat to train up to Katonah. To hell with jackassing all that way. Besides, Pat could still expense a strip and potato. Pharaoh Crandall hasn’t crimped the expense accounts . . . yet. Another swig and rattle of the ice and the glow was full-on. Pat stood to stretch and hit the john. He took one hitched step, and there it was: numbness all down the leg. Give it a minute.

“I thought that was you, Paddy boy!” It was Richie DeNuccio, from Cardinal Hayes High School. Now Sergeant DeNuccio in his patrol blues.

“Holy shit, Richie, how are you?” Pat awkwardly braced against the bar and threw an arm around him.

“Fuckin’ sixes and sevens, Paddy. Where you been?” Richie had a cop’s squint that made you feel like a perp. He had a beer gut, no surprise, and looked fat faced from his desk job but overall pretty hearty—not too far gone from the pulling guard for Hayes’s varsity. “Didn’t you move to Texas?”

“That’s the story the Feds have me telling.”

“Jesus Christ. Cowboy Malone on the range.”

“How’s the finest?”

“Hanging in . . .” Richie guzzled a Löwenbräu and waved at his lieutenant and a couple of patrolmen to rack the pool table and start without him. “Hanging in by a thread. I’m about to retire. They wanted to switch me out from operations downtown back up to Webster Avenue. I said go fuck yourself. I know all the criminals in the North Bronx, and they ain’t going nowhere. I’m done, fully vested. And my pal Vinnie—you know Vincent Intondi? Went to Bergen Catholic and used to crawl around this hole-in-the-wall?—well, he’s on Nixon’s detail in Saddle River and thinks he can get me in there.”

Pat let go of the bar, his leg still unresponsive, and lurched toward Richie, who put a hand up to catch him.

“Whoa, cowboy. You all right?”

“Sorry, leg fell asleep.”

Pat was half in the bag, and Richie gave himself a quick hook and made like he was catching the next train to Fordham Road.

“You’re a good man, Malone—like Gary Cooper heading out to the territories. Reilly, what the fuck was the name of that movie?”

“Sound of Music?”

“No, asshole, the one where he’s the hanging judge?”

“Pride of the Yankees?” The regulars howled at that one.